I'm a lifelong atheist and a molecular biologist with a passion for science and a passionate opposition to its enemies.
You may have come across the argument before: How can you say there isn’t a God, when butterfly wings are so perfect, or the Earth is just right for us, or [insert awesome nature fact here]. This argument is typically presented as an “argument from incredulity” (“How else could everything possibly come to be?”) with a healthy dose of appeal to emotion (“But have you seen how perfect the hand of a newborn is?”)… Here is the counter-argument, in video form, from the always excellent TheThinkingAtheist: Read more
The world of Christian homeschooling is undergoing a shift. More and more, parents are seeking material that will “teach the controversy” on evolution. Although we tend to see that as a method to discredit evolution when used in public schools, you might think this is actually a step up in the world of Creationism-or-bust homeschooling textbooks — they’re finally teaching evolution, too — but there’s a little more to the story than that: Christian homeschool science textbooks have long taught young earth creationism (YEC) almost exclusively. But observers say a growing number of parents want texts that also teach evolution. “The YEC position is strong and ingrained in the homeschool movement,” said Sonlight president Sarita Holzmann, who homeschools her children and believes in a young earth. “That might be to our detriment.” She says students need to be able to evaluate different positions. [Click headline for more…] Read more
When the subject of autism comes up, one thing you can count on is that someone, somewhere will say something stupid. So it’s not all that surprising to see someone make a deeply uninformed statement like this: “Autistic children do not know how to believe in God because they do not have a section for faith in their brains”… The statement itself is stupid, but the author of it is even more shocking; Fehmi Kaya, the head of the Health and Education Associations for Autistic Children in Adana, Turkey. Yes, that’s right, the head of an organization supposedly dedicated to the needs of autistic children believes that there is a special section of your brain for your belief in God. [Click headline for more…] Read more
Months ago we brought you the story of Fazil Say, a world-renowned pianist who was to be prosecuted for the “crime” of tweeting jokes about Islam. Despite protests both within and outside Turkey, the prosecution went ahead and declared Say guilty of “insulting religious values of a part of the population,” giving him a 10-month jail sentence. Thankfully, it is a suspended sentence, so Say will not have to enter prison, but it does mean that if Say commits a similar “crime” within the next five years, he would be ordered to enter prison. (So shut up, or else.) [Click headline for more…] Read more
Children and teens in New York are being forced off-campus for education about sexual health and HIV prevention at the insistence of the Catholic Church. How can the Church get away with that? Well, it helps that they own the buildings in which the public schools are housed: As a result of a longstanding but little-known agreement between church and city officials, dozens of city schools that lease church-owned buildings must take students off site for sex education. So the church is using its ownership of the buildings to dictate what public school students can and cannot learn on campus. To my surprise, it turns out that the interference in public education has been going on for several years: Read more
